This is a sequel to Trust Machines – Big Red Button
Everything went black. One moment she was in the Venn machine. She was probably still in the Venn machine for now, she realized. But she could not see or move. “What has he done to me now?” She wondered. She felt funny, like she was not completely solid.
After a moment she felt herself moving inside something. “Am I a liquid?” she thought. Part of her started being thrown about and something solid flew through her liquid form. “I'm definitely in a cylinder shaped container or..
* * *
“Can you tell me what the bet is this time?” Susan said.
“No bet,” Tom said.
“No?”
“No, this is the end of your double or nothing loses. Congratulations. That also means three months is three months, you can't win your way out of the full duration.”
“I think I'd prefer a bet.”
“Oh, c'mon, I'm thinking you'll love this one.”
“Wanna bet?”
He just shook his head and smiled.
As they set the machine to three months, the door opened and Tom handed Susan a canvas bag he had been carrying this whole time. “You have to take this in with you.” Whatever was in there was metal and rattling around, making noise.
“Can I look inside the bag?”
“Only once you get inside the machine.”
“Fine.”
Inside the booth, she opened the bag and found six spray paint cans. “What are these for?” She called out.
“They're extra mass for your containment,” Tom said.
“Containment?”
“You'll see.”
* * *
“I'm paint,” she thought. “Why paint?” Of course this explained why there was no bet enabling her to end her service ahead of time. She was not sure why he thought she would enjoy this though.
Time passed slowly. She was positive she had spent a day or two just sitting in the cans. She was getting more and more curious about how it would feel to be sprayed out of the can.
She was not disappointed. She remembered being in motion again after a long time just sitting around. Then there was the shaking. She could not feel anyone holding the can itself so she guessed the can was not part of her.
Suddenly there was pressure in the can and she felt herself being pushed upward toward a dim light that suddenly appeared above. Being squeezed through the nozzle felt amazing. The first few times she barely noticed the feeling of landing on a flat surface, being laid down beside prior lines of fresh paint, the paint she was.
She started experiencing a split mind kind of thing. Part of her was still just sitting in the other cans. Part of her was laying flat against a wall. And a small part of her was squeezing through the nozzle to join the part of her against a wall.
He had been right. She was thoroughly enjoying being sprayed out of a spray paint can. But already parts of her were drying onto the wall -- it was cement or brick, she felt. She would have laughed if she had lungs. She felt she was about to find out what was more boring than watching paint dry: being the paint that was drying.
Again, she was surprised. As more and more of her landed on the wall, she noticed she could feel more than the wall. She could feel a slight breeze flowing across her surface. Drying actually felt kind of nice too. The transition from wet, liquid paint to dry, solid paint was like the caress of a lover and she was feeling this from the tips of her toes to the top of her head, or at least that was how her human brain interpreted it. She realized it was unlikely that she was being sprayed onto the surface in such an orderly fashion. An equally likely order was that one bit of paint might be from her spleen and the next bit of paint from her eyelid.
As more and more of her covered the surface, she realized she must be quite big. Whoever was doing the painting was just one person and they were now on their third can. She thought she might be over ten feet wide and growing taller and taller by the can.
She could feel the sun warming her and the cement behind her. She was pretty sure it was cement. She was not flat against the wall. The wall was covered with little bumps and she contoured to those bump evenly.
She started to hear things. Sound bouncing off the wall became sound she heard. A voice said, “Are you sure we're allowed to paint this?” She did not recognize it.
“I got a permit. Besides, it'll disappear in three months.” That voice she knew all too well. Tom.
* * *
Tom shook Lance's hand. “Perfect.”
“A pleasure, Tom,” he said. “The picture reference was perfect.”
Tom helped Lance fold his ladders and put them on his truck.
“It's too bad it'll disappear in a few months,” Lance said.
“Well, art is lost all the time.”
“I suppose. Let me get a few pictures. Go stand by it. Most of the parts you can reach should be dry by now.”
I stood by the image painted onto the wall. Lance snapped a few pics and then called me over to look at them.
On the wall was a tasteful nude picture of Susan standing sort of how Venus appears in the painting Birth of Venus. In each of the shots, Tom was standing on the ground in front of the wall, his head around mid-thigh on the painted figure. The painting was styled like most street art and was only made up a few colors. Still it resembled her perfectly.
“Do you think she can see us?”
“I doubt it. She might be able to hear us though.”
* * *
This is quite nice, Tom, she thought. Being outside, she was well aware of the passing of time. While she could not see, she could feel the sunlight on her surface. Even on a cloudy day, she could feel the difference between day and night.
Every now and then she would hear people talking about herself, the painting on the wall. She was not sure what she looked like but she knew she was in the image. Sometimes people would touch her. She loved that feeling. Just like the big red button, this venning was addictive in its own way. She had never felt so peaceful for so long.
The first rain drove her mad with pleasure. At first drops of rain slowly landed on her and then caressed as the rolled partway down the wall, joined with other droplets and accelerated down the wall. Then rain intensified and she felt these caresses all over her body. She knew some time passed after the rain where she was not aware because of the overload of pleasure.
During the first two months, Tom would stop by every few days and check in with her. He would say, “How's it going in there?” and tell her how many days had gone by. And that would be the end of the one-sided conversation.
One day, he said, “How's it going in there? I know you can't answer but I just thought I'd tell you it's been about 78 days since you were venned. Morgan says, 'Hi.' I told her she could just come out here and say hi herself but she didn't want people to see her talking to a wall. I guess that doesn't bother me.
“We really should stop doing these bets where we try to outdo one another. Hopefully when you see what you look like now, you'll agree.” There was a long pause and she thought he had walked away. But instead the felt a hand touch her. He said, “I love you.”
She pondered that thought for a while afterwards. Of course Tom loved her. They were best buds with benefits. But he had never said those words before. Unless she was being over-stimulated by her current form, she thought about nothing else during the remaining days.
* * *
Without warning or fanfare, Susan found herself standing next to the side wall of Tom's apartment building. She was facing the wall and looked up, but there was no trace that anything had been painted onto the wall. When she turned around Tom was standing there. He gave her a big hug and she returned it.
“About what you said,” she started.
“Wait. First, look at this.” He took out his phone and tapped it a few times before handing it too her.”
It was a picture of the side of the building with a mural on it. The mural was at least twenty feet high and depicted a woman standing in a large clamshell, naked, her hair covering her private bits strategically. The woman's face was definitely Susan's face. There were words arched around her head, “I will marry this woman.”
When she looked up from the phone, Tom was on one knee holding an open ring box, “Susan, I never want to be without you again. I bet you'll marry me.”
She smiled, “That's a sucker's bet.” And they kissed.